Misdirection: The Man in the SUV
by SarahKjrsten
Summary: The second in a new series by Torigates and SarahKjrsten. What if Booth didn't have a son, but Brennan had a daughter? This fanfic looks at 1.02 to explore the answer to that question.


_**Misdirection: The Man in the SUV**_

**Authors notes/Disclaimer:** This labor of love came about when Sarah asked the seemingly simple question: What if it were Brennan with the child? Obviously we're both just crazy enough to try and answer it. This is an AU and therefore for obvious reasons a lot of dialogue is taken directly from The Man in the SUV. No copyright infringement is meant.

We want to thank all of you for the wonderful reviews (both here and on livejournal) and all of the alerts! We hope you enjoy our second two-part venture into our AU world.

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Brennan left the lab and headed directly for Booth's place. She had looked up his address after the Eller case—in the event that she needed to personally deliver any results, she reasoned.

Brennan paused (metaphorically, of course, she was driving, and to literally pause on Pennsylvania Avenue would potentially cause traffic collisions) to think about what she was doing. While the entire case hinged on the identity of the murderer it would be faster to simply call Booth than personally bring him the results. Yet she was in her car turning left off of Pennsylvania to hand deliver the identity of the bomber.

She shouldn't feel such a strong loyalty towards Booth. This was only their third case working together and of the previous two cases only one could be even remotely called "successful".

The first time she worked with Booth had been a complete disaster. It had been only a few months after Brennan had arrived in Washington, and Brennan had been worn thin. She'd done everything in her power to prepare herself for her daughter's birth, yet when faced with thirty seven hours of preterm labor and a colicky five pound baby she estimated that ninety three percent of those plans had to be abandoned. Six months later when she was called in the consult on the case, Brennan was running on sheer determination. A cocky FBI agent who discounted everything she said got what he deserved in Brennan's opinion.

Two years later she was working with that same man, yet things were different. Maybe she'd just gotten used to him. She didn't do well with new people and she knew that was why Angela thought she was giving Agent Gibson such a difficult time. But there was something more that she couldn't quite name that compelled her to dropped Genevieve off at Angela's place and drive to Booth's and give him the lab report herself.

Brennan slipped into Booth's apartment building behind one of the other tenants, and rode the elevator up to his floor. She clutched the file in her hands and bounced up and down on the balls of her feet. She was suddenly nervous, and she didn't know why. There was no need to feel weird about bringing Booth the identity of the bomber. Of course he would want to know right away—this was a matter of national security.

Brennan scanned the hall as she walked towards Booth's door. The building wasn't nearly as nice as the new condo Brennan had just moved her and Genevieve into, but Booth was living on his own on a much smaller salary. It only made sense. Though she would have thought he'd have chosen to live in a neighborhood that spoke more toward his desire to be perceived as an alpha male than Eastern Market.

It wasn't until after she knocked on the door did Brennan consider that Booth might be otherwise engaged, and that maybe it would have been best to call first, or alerted him to her presence by using the buzzer.

"Bones?" Brennan's attention was immediately snapped back to Booth. His shirt was unbuttoned, and his hair was still damp, like he had just gotten out of the shower.

"Yeah," Brennan said awkwardly. This was a bad idea. She tried not to stare at his chest because Angela said that it made people feel uncomfortable when she stared. Booth did have very well defined pectoral muscles.

"Did we have an appointment?" Booth asked. He seemed to realize where her gaze was drawn and buttoned his shirt.

Brennan shook her head, and focused her attention back on why she had come here in the first place. "No," she said and handed Booth the file. "Uh, it's him. Masruk is the bomber."

"I guess the wife didn't know the husband very well," Booth said. Brennan thought that was an odd reaction to the news she had just given him. Before she had the chance to comment on this, a small redheaded woman came into the room wearing a man's button up shirt and not much else.

"Hey," she said.

"Hi," Brennan said feeling extremely awkward. "Sorry." She wouldn't have pegged Booth as the type of man to be in a relationship. From all of their interactions thus far, Brennan had assumed Booth lived alone.

Booth dropped his head into his hands. "Amy, this is Brennan," he said without looking up. "Amy Mortan, Dr. Temperance Brennan."

"Oh, hi," Amy said smiling brightly. "I've heard lots about you."

"Really?" Brennan asked looking back over at Booth. He had mentioned her to this woman, but not bothered to say anything about Amy.

"Amy's an attorney," Booth said, still not looking up. Brennan wondered why he was so embarrassed.

"Yep," Amy said. "Defence. Pro-bono, mostly."

Brennan was about to launch into the story of the corporate attorney's remains she had been examining only last week, when another man walked into the room, wearing only a pair of boxers. He put his arm around Amy. "Hi," he said and smiled at her. "I'm Jared."

Brennan looked back and forth between the two men, totally confused. Finding another woman in Booth's apartment had been a shock, finding him with another man... Brennan thought he would have been too restricted sexually to be interested in men, let alone partake in any kind of threesomes.

Booth cleared his throat and said, "Jared, this is Dr. Brennan. Bones this is Jared, my brother."

Jared stepped forward and shook her hand. "Good to meet you," he said. "Seel talks about you all the time."

Brennan furrowed her brow. She always imagined Booth to be a solitary creature. Alpha-male. Yet here he was living with two people Brennan had never even heard of before. It was unsettling. Though now she knew of the familial relationship between the two men, she could see the resemblance.

"You and your brother share similar mandibles though your zygomatic bones are quite different."

Booth finished buttoning his shirt. "Well," he said, "the Bureau," he paused. "I was just heading to the Bureau. Santana called and said something about a bombing and I thought you were at the lab. Maybe," he glanced at his brother, "you should come."

"Sure," Brennan said. Even she noted the differences in the demeanors of the two brothers. Jared's posture indicated that he was comfortable and at ease while Booth was standing ramrod straight and fidgeting with the button on his cuff.

"Right," Booth said, and looked back at Jared and Amy. "See you later." He grabbed his coat and keys and ushered Brennan out the door.

"I thought she was your girlfriend," Brennan said as they walked down the hall towards the elevator.

"Amy? No," he said. "No, no, no, no, no."

Brennan looked at him sharply. Booth leaned forward and hit the down button for the elevator. "Why do you say it like that?" Brennan asked.

"Like what?" Booth asked slipping into his jacket, passing the file from one hand to the other.

"Like it's a preposterous idea," Brennan said. "She came to your door in only her underwear and a man's shirt. What else was I supposed to think?"

Booth scratched the back of his neck, and Brennan thought she actually saw a blush on his face. "I've told her dozens of times not to walk around like that, but she won't listen to me."

"Huh," Brennan said. What she had seen of his home life was not adding up to the image she had built around him at work. It _was_ logical, if Brennan stopped to think about it. Her relationship with her own daughter was a prime example of how someone could be extremely different in various settings, but she had never considered how Booth might be different when he wasn't around her.

The elevator doors dinged open and they walked in. "What?" Booth asked.

"Hmm? Oh, nothing." Brennan absently pushed the button for the ground floor as she continued to think about Booth.

"It's not nothing," Booth said. "You huh-ed."

Brennan sighed and turned to face him. New revelations about Booth's personal life aside, Brennan was quite sure he was going to take what she said next personally. "I just figured you as the solitary type."

"What! Me? You're solitary."

Brennan sighed again and pinched the bridge of her nose. "No, no I'm private. It's different and we weren't talking about me."

"Well, I was," Booth huffed. The elevator doors slid open and Booth strode out into the lobby. Brennan had to hurry to keep up with him.

"Well, I wasn't. Look, it's nice that you live with your brother." Booth stopped suddenly, and Brennan almost collided with him.

"What's that supposed to mean?" Booth asked her, hands on his hips.

"Nothing!" Brennan protested.

"You think a grown man shouldn't live with his brother?" Booth asked her.

"Of course not," Brennan told him. "In fact in many cultures it's quite common for unmarried men to live together. They often segregate themselves from the females in their society until the time in which they are allowed to seek a mate. Though, most of these unmarried men are adolescents and not men in their late thirties."

Booth started walking again, and Brennan followed him into the parking lot, but couldn't make out what he was mumbling under his breath, except for 'late thirties'. Brennan heard the chirp when Booth unlocked the doors to his SUV, but she didn't think it would be a good time to mention that she had driven her own car.

Booth walked next to her and opened the passenger door. "Jared lives with me and pays rent when he remembers. It works for us, all right?"

"All right," Brennan said and let it go. Still, it was something for her to think about.


End file.
